Billy Bevevino is a Philadelphia-raised – Brooklyn-transplant DJ, producer, and co-founder of the Rock The House music collective. His analog-driven productions and energetic performances reflect a deep passion for classic samples and high-energy club culture. With releases on labels like Basement discos, Y4 Records, and Fantastic Voyage, he has garnered support from legends like Todd Edwards and contemporary tastemakers such as TSHA and Ky William. After nearly a decade of performing and throwing parties, Billy continues to uplift ravers through both his tracks and his community-driven events.
Off the back of Billy’s highly anticipated ‘Lift Me Up’ EP, landing on his self-run Analog Animals imprint this November we sit down with U.S house head to talk through the EP plus much more…
Hey Billy, great to meet you! What’s happening in your world at the minute?
Great to chat as well and thanks for having me! Life is great right now – I am currently gearing up for a Halloween gig and additionally the release of the “Lift Me Up” at the moment. I also recently moved to Brooklyn and have been blessed to experience a lot of awesome shows and events. The venues here are fantastic – I am currently obsessed with Good Room and Nowadays.
Congratulations on releasing ‘Lift Me Up EP’. Talk us through the release, what is the Inspiration behind it?
Thank you! I have been working on a collection of music over the past two years that distinguished my sound and four of those tracks make up the “Lift Me Up”. I love to create tracks from ideas that start as jams with my analog gear and then get fleshed out into full songs. A lot of times I will have an idea in my head before I start a session and I have found that using analog gear is a great way to speed up the production process.
A few of the most inspiring things for me as an artist are attending shows, listening to my favorite music and immersing myself in artistic communities. I have been doing a lot of these three things over the past two years and it shines through in the music.For example the title track, “Lift Me Up”, was created after a long night at an AceMo show. I took a video of this fantastic track that he played out and “Lift Me Up” was my best attempt to create something in a similar vein.
I also intentionally spend a few months out of every year at an artist community outside of Bogota called Artesumapaz. Being surrounded by artists from other disciplines in an environment that embraces creativity has been so important for my development as a creator and a human.
At the artistic community, I would listen to a playlist of reference tracks on loop for an hour everyday before I started making music for the day. I feel like the 20+ tracks on that playlist bleed through the entire project.
Tell us about your own Analog Animals label?
Analog Animals has been an outlet for me and my friends from Philadelphia to release music over the past few years. It has been a pleasure to be able to support and share music that was created among close friends. I also love that the logo is a raccoon – my favorite animal 🙂
For those who are just discovering your music, what do you hope they feel or experience when they listen to your productions?
Such a good question and something that I think about often! I want people to experience joy when they are listening to my music. I purposely create music that has an underlying positive energy and vibe.
Can you describe the connection between your music and your Philly, and how they continue to influence your music today?
I love Philadelphia. When I first moved here 5 years ago I was nothing like the individual I am now. The city of Philadelphia has a huge influence on not only my music but who I am as a person. I have been lucky enough to be a part of the house music community in Philadelphia for over 5 years. In that time I have been blessed to have experienced more awesome shows than I can count from crews such as Subsurface and Making Time. I have had so many gigs that allowed me to become a proper DJ after mainly DJing off of my computer at college house parties before moving to Philadelphia.
I look up to so many artists in the city who have been great mentors and friends to me – such as Matthew Law, John Raffaele, Rob Paine, Dj Matpat, Zach Atom, Shugazi, Nothingspecial and at least 100 other people.
Sampling records is a huge part of my creative process and I like to intentionally sample records that were created by Philadelphia artists – especially Philadelphia Soul artists.
Over the past 5 years I have found my sound and I have Philadelphia to thank!
We hear you like your hardwear, can you enlighten us on any notable gear used on this EP?
Of course – a lot of these tracks actually started out as analog-only ideas and the gear was such an important part of the EP. I am a big Roland guy who loves his TR-8S and MK404II. These two pieces of equipment really did the heavy lifting on this EP! I also used my Behringer TB-03 Mod and Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus.
Last year I had a really fun session with my friend Ben Arsenal and I was intrigued about how he ran each individual track through his DJ mixer into Ableton. I ended up using this trick throughout this ep and frankly on most of my productions now.
The 900 has so many cool effects that I love to put on my instruments before sending the audio into Ableton.
Can you share some insight into your creative process when producing music? Do you have any particular rituals or methods that help you stay inspired?
To stay inspired, I try to listen to as much music and attend as many shows as possible. For me, I have created my best tracks when I was like a sponge taking in the most amount of music as possible. This may sound weird – but I have leaned into the subconscious when it comes to creating. I have made quite a few tracks that started out as ideas I had in my dreams. I also will randomly get musical ideas while doing mundane activities like walking. It could just be a vocal phrase, a melody, a bassline – whatever. I treat these ideas as songwriting gold and really try to use them in my tracks. It doesn’t always work but it is fun to try.
I have had a lot of rituals in the past – the past two winters I would go months at a time where I would create two tracks a day. I would start by listening to the playlist described earlier for an hour then I would spend an hour creating an idea, have a smoke break and then spend an hour creating a second idea. I would make sure each of these ideas were fleshed out into a track within the hour as well.
If the track I created was bad – great! I got to practice and I most likely learned something. If the track I created was good – great! I would spend time fleshing it out and would put it in a folder of tracks to finish. One month I only took a day or two off and created 60+ tracks. I only ended up mixing, mastering and releasing a few of them – however, I thought the process of creating so much music was immensely helpful for my development as an artist.
Currently – I don’t have as much time so I try to create as intentionally as possible as often as possible. However, I am going back to South America soon and hope to hop back into the state of creating two songs a day.
As someone deeply rooted in the House scene, what state is it in right now? What notable artists are emerging?
I am excited for what is next – but frankly I don’t have a great answer on the current state it is right now! I think I need to get a bit older and experience a few more cycles. I have friends in the scene such as Rob Paine who have been doing this since the early 90s. I am sure they have a better idea of the state of the house scene than I do.
In an effort to answer your question, I do think it is in a good place and I am blown away by how good of a state it is in Brooklyn. The amount of high-quality clubs where you can listen to amazing music within a bike ride of my house is insane!
When you are not busy with music, what might we find you doing?
I feel like I am always busy with music so maybe I need some more hobbies lol. I have been on a huge health kick recently so you can always catch me at the YMCA or at McCarron park running laps. Love being outdoors, reading and spending time with those I am closest to. I am also a huge Philadelphia Eagles and overall football fan!
What do you have coming up in the next few months? Feel free to mention anything!
I am excited for a bunch of shows in New York, Philadelphia and beyond. I have a lot of music releases lined up alongside traveling. I am spending two months in South America this winter as I am going around attending the Bonanza Festival at El Rio. Early in 2025 we are also celebrating 5 years of my music events collective Rock The House which should be a ton of fun.
Finally, tell us about three of your best dancefloor fillers…
Hey Baby – Laurence Guy
Just a monster of a tune – absolutely love the energy on this track.
Daddy – Chrissy
Such a fun track I discovered this summer off of one of my favorite labels Nervous Records.
The Next Morning – D. Stone, Million
So hard to not move your hips to this wonderful track off of CINTHIE’s Crystal Grooves label.
Buy/ Listen to Lift Me Up EP here